Tuesday, August 18, 2009

I’ve written a little before about our old neighborhood. It had its charms, (freeway close, Toys R Us and good bagel bakery adjacent) and its not-so-charms (everything else). Most notably, there was a lot of police action. The sounds of sirens and helicopters circling overhead were hourly occurrences.

Last fall we moved 16.9 miles and 3.4 universes away to the place we live now. Our new small-ish town is best described as sleepy. I mean “sleepy” in a handful of Ambien with a vodka chaser kind of way.

There is a local newspaper here that comes out every Wednesday. Eight swell pages filled with Senior Center Pancake Breakfasts and Junior High Track Meets. My favorite (obsession) section is the small column on page six reserved for “Weekly Police Activity.”

TheftsFriday 2:00pm. Victim leaves wallet at a friend’s (suspect) house and suspect takes victim’s credit card and attempts to make an unauthorized purchase but is denied.(doink doink)

Suspicious ActivityTuesday 9:00pm. Victim has front door open for ventilation and screen door is locked. Suspect knocks on screen door and inquires if “Stacy” is home. Victim says that there is no one named "Stacy" that lives there. Suspect leaves on foot.(doink doink)

This is awesome. That's kinda what I did: moved from a high crime area about 6 miles away to a place with a police blotter with 3 entries, and they're all about arrests made on traffic stops from people passing through!

I may have to write a comparative entry about my experience soon! Thanks for the inspiration!

Love it. A friend of mine used to write up the police blotter for a Chicago suburb paper. Usually stuff like "A ring, valued at $500, was stolen from a vehicle at the Tasty Twist on 170th and Reston Ave" but the best was "A pizza, valued at $11.95, was stolen from a Domino's delivery car at 5th and Thurston Street". Tough criminals! "Doink, doink".